Historical Overview of Immigration to
Canada

Colonial Era Immigrants

Historians recognize two distinct colonial periods in
Canada's past:

New France, from 1604 to 1763

and British North America from 1670 to 1873.

Within New France there were two main population groups, one in
the Maritimes, then known as Acadia, and the other in Quebec, whose
members lived almost exclusively along the St. Lawrence, Richelieu
and Saguenay rivers. Both peoples of French origin relied on the
crops, livestock and fisheries they established themselves.

New France fell to British arms in the 1760s, cutting off
immigration from the homeland. As a result, the birth rate had to
account for population increases among French Canadians.

Immediately after the Conquest, the surge into Quebec of
merchants and farmers from New England was large enough only to
fill gaps left by those who had returned to France; the economy had
no real slack or potential to absorb many more settlers.
Consequently, the population of Canada remained static for a
generation. The main action was to the south, where the American
colonists, freed from the need for Britain's protection from
France began resisting the restrictive mercantile system Britain
imposed upon all its colonies. Eventually, these grievances and
others led to a war for independence. When peace was concluded in
1783, the immediate effect on Canada was a wave of migrants north
into the remaining British colonies. Known as United Empire
Loyalists, they settled in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick. They numbered 42,000 in all, and had a dramatic effect
on Canada's linguistic, religious and commercial balances.